The Ascalon Horror: Location Encounter Progress

I started writing location encounters for The Ascalon Horror yesterday afternoon. The first thing I did was copy some of the “vital text” from my revised Arkham Horror encounters, so I wouldn’t have to rewrite any really basic stuff. Then, I figured on writing the “companion” encounters, so I could standardize the text.

Since I’m using my new “Trophies and Treasures” reward system, I figured it would be a good time to create some ground rules for approaching and acquiring a new companion, or what to do if the non-player character in question is already another player’s companions (or otherwise unavailable). I wound up writing a bunch of them.

“Burn you beasts, burn!” yells Orion Elek, and he unleashes a rain of fire upon the elementals. You may spend two monster trophies to take his companion card. If his card isn’t available, you may gain a quest trophy instead.

I haven’t worked out the exact formatting for encounters, but I’m trying to make a habit of italicizing quotations (especially when I’m pulling from Guild Wars itself), and bolding the names of characters and creature types. In other encounters, I’ve gone and bolded the mechanics being used, a move akin to highlighting them.

Now, you normally pick up a quest trophy when you remove a rumor token from a location (I’m still working out the basic mechanics). These companion encounters therefore enable you to acquire quest trophies by trading in your monster trophies, which you’ll also want to pursue throughout the events of the game.

There’s no text to indicate something happens if you don’t have enough monster trophies, so you can safely assume that nothing happens if you don’t have enough monster trophies (sad, but true). Unlike Arkham Horror however, there is a greater incentive for the defeat of monsters and collection of trophies.

From a mechanical perspective, two monster trophies is a big deal. That’s literally what you get for defeating two monsters. Defeat one monster, get one monster trophy. Normally, you can’t carry more than two monster trophies, but I’m working on the equivalent of Guild Wars’s belt pouch, equipment pack, and bags of holding.

So, that’s an example of one encounter, a little anatomy lesson, and an idea for the future. I’ve actually finished the first draft of the “Wizard’s Tower” encounters, but I’m going to hold off on posting a complete list until I’ve finished all the locations in Wizard’s Folly. I’ll continue to update with my progress as it comes along.